Books like

Books like This One Summer

12 books with a reading profile close to This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki. Inward-looking; an easy read.

1

The Immortalists

by Chloe Benjamin

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

In 1969 New York, the four Gold siblings—Varya, Daniel, Klara, and Simon—visit a psychic who predicts the exact date each will die.
2

The Spectacular Now

by Tim Tharp

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Sutter Keely is a high school senior in a small Oklahoma town who lives for parties and drinking and thinks of himself as the life of every gathering.
3

The Language of Flowers

by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Victoria Jones ages out of the California foster care system with no resources and a history of failed placements.
4

The Light Between Oceans

by M.L. Stedman

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Tom Sherbourne, a traumatized veteran of the Great War, takes a job as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, a remote island off the Western Australian coast.
5

Long Way Down

by Jason Reynolds

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Fifteen-year-old Will Holloman sits in an elevator with a gun tucked into his waistband, intending to kill the man who shot his brother, Shawn.
6

Before I Fall

by Lauren Oliver

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Samantha Kingston is a popular high school senior who occupies a high rank in her school’s social hierarchy alongside her three best friends.
7

Hello Beautiful

by Ann Napolitano

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

William Waters grows up in a silent, loveless household, finding his only refuge in basketball.
8

Tom Lake

by Ann Patchett

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

During the 2020 pandemic, Lara gathers with her three adult daughters on their family cherry orchard in Michigan.
9

Interesting Facts about Space

by Emily R. Austin

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Enid Hoffman is a deaf woman who manages her chronic anxiety through a fixation on space trivia and a compulsive habit of monitoring local crime reports.
10

Love Letters to the Dead

by Ava Dellaira

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

When Laurel’s English teacher assigns a letter to a deceased person, the high school freshman begins a secret journal addressed to figures like Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, and Amy Winehouse.
11

I Am the Messenger

by Markus Zusak

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Ed Kennedy is an underage cab driver in a dead-end Australian suburb with no prospects beyond playing cards with his eccentric friends.
12

Blue Sisters

by Coco Mellors

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky Blue are three estranged sisters who return to their family apartment in New York one year after the death of their fourth sibling, Nicky.

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